


Returning the Favour

by DacerGirl369



Category: Young Justice, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Bonding, Depression, Drink, F/M, Family, Family Dynamics, Gen, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2018-02-25 00:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2601728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DacerGirl369/pseuds/DacerGirl369
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>*Post Season 2. Spoilers for Endgame and pretty much the whole season*</p><p>Roy was broken after he lost Wally. He was slipping away like he did before, back into the depths of the depression he worked so hard to get out of last time... He needs saving.</p><p>Arsenal has a debt to repay. Red Arrow rescued him from Cadmus. So he'll rescue Red from the dark place he's sinking back into. It was a simple matter of paying off whats he owed Red. He never expected to start caring about him.</p><p>A story about how strangers turn into friends, and how friendship can turn into something so much more- family. Because, for better or for worse, they are family. Even if they don't want to admit it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Alcohol & Arsenal

**Author's Note:**

> After an exceptionally long internal debate, I have decided to post this. It is my new project for NaNo this year, and I'm very behind, so I thought that posting it might make me type faster. However, I'm only posting it here, and its my first work, since i generally type over there on ff.net, but I hate the postings Yates over there with a deep firey passion, so here I a:)
> 
> But blah, you didn't click on this to hear me rant.
> 
> So, here. Chapter 1, that I wrote all the way back on my Ireland trip in August. 
> 
> Please enjoy:)

Red Arrow, known to his friends as Roy Harper, was drinking in his apartment after Wally's funeral. He was on his fourth can of beer now, and he still wasn't drunk enough. He needed to be absolutely plastered before he started thinking again. The thinking was bad. It hurt. He needed to be drunk enough to stop having coherent thoughts. 

Maybe he'd pass out.

Maybe he'd die. 

Then he wouldn't have to think about it anymore.

He knew deep down that he couldn't die. He couldn't leave Lian. Ollie would probably go insane, not that he cared. Black Canary would probably get mad at him for it anyway. Wally would be mad at him too. When he got up there. He'd probably yell at him for a while.

No, he couldn't die. He couldn't deny that right here, right now, he wanted to, dear god how he wanted to, but he knew he couldn't.

He still couldn't believe that he was really gone. It felt like a stupid prank, the kind that Wally and Dick would play on him all the time back in the good old days. Back when they were brothers and it was the three of them against the world. Well, the three of them and an occasional Kaldur. That was always how it was.

Wally was one of his best friends. 

Wally was his brother.

And now he was gone.

It just didn't seem real. It didn't even seem possible. It felt like Wally would come zipping in any second now and say something really stupid and then Roy would punch him in the arm and yell at him for scaring him like that. And then Wally would hug him and he would hug back, and then he'd never let go.

His head was in his hands and he was pretty sure that he couldn't breathe. The weight in his chest was suffocating, and his heart was pounding so hard that it hurt. He was thinking again. Thinking and hoping and wishing, and he just needed to stop, he needed to breathe, he needed to drink...

He threw back another can before crushing it in his fist. He stared at the crushed metal in his hand, the small amount of alcohol left in it dripping on to his fingers. His hand was bleeding where the metal has cut it, and the liquid stung when it made contact with the broken skin, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He knew that he had to get up, he had to take care of the slice on his hand, but he just didn't want to. He just wanted to sit here and wallow in his own misery for the night, possibly the rest of his life if everyone would just leave him alone. 

"Wow." There was a voice. Someone was talking, in his apartment, but it wasn't him. It sounded like him, it was his voice, but it wasn't him. No, that was wrong. It wasn't his voice. It belonged to the other boy, the one who was real, the one that was original. "This really is sad. Ollie said that he was worried about you, but I didn't think that... Wow."

Red Arrow didn't even look up. He didn't move an inch, just sat there, crushed, dripping can still in hand.  
"Thanks for the pep talk." His voice came out angry, if not slightly slurred, which he let out a sigh of relief at. At least the beer was working. He waited for the other to respond, but when he got no answer, it just made him more angry. "What do you want!? Why are you even in my apartment!?"

He threw the crumpled mass of metal in his hand as hard as he could, initially aiming for the other boys head, but the other hero didn't even need to dodge as he watched the can hit the wall next to him, hard enough to leave a dent.

He didn't really mean it. He wasn't that mad at him. But before he could even tell what he was doing, he was taking out all of his anger on someone who wasn't even involved. Somewhere deep in his head, in a part that wasn't completely drunk yet, he knew it was ridiculous. But the part that was here, now, controlling him, that was the part that was angry, drunk, and hurt. He'd never been very good at dealing with his feelings, even when his wasn't angry, drunk, and hurt.

He stood up, he was about to start yelling, about to start screaming at the top of his lungs because how dare he show up in his apartment when this mess is his fault and if it wasn't for him then this wouldn't have happened. He was looking for the words to hurl insults and throw blame at the boy currently standing in front of him, but just as quickly as this crushing, burning, choking anger appeared, it was gone again. It left him again and all Red Arrow could do was sink back down into his couch seat and put his head in his bloody hands again, smudges of red making their way onto his face.

"That cut on your hands pretty deep. We're gonna have to sort it." 

His voice was soft, yet slightly mechanical, like he was trying to be nice, to be understanding, but just wasn't too sure how to go about it. Red just closed his eyes and sighed into his injured hands, which turned into a deep groan when the air hit the cut.

"Why?" He didn't sound as angry anymore, even though he wanted to, was trying to be angry, because being angry was easier than being sad or hurt or fragile. But he sounded more subdued now, still slurred, but the edge had left his tone, making him sound more tired. Beaten. Broken.

"What do you mean why? If we don't sort it then it'll get infected, and then who knows what'll happen. The league won't have an archer who can't pull a bowstring. After all, and archers hands are the most importan-"

"That's not what I meant." Red cut him off, finally moving his head from his hands to look at the other archer. He was in his civvies, the usual hard glare visible through his mask replaced with bright blue eyes, much too similar to his own, looking at him with a hint of worry. He wore a red t-shirt, and he could see the light from the window reflect off the silver of the boys new arm. He didn't have a bow, or a quiver, and Red could tell easily through his t-shirt and jeans that he wasn't armed. Naturally, there were always the weapons built in to his arm to worry about, so Red didn't let his guard down completely, but it didn't look like the boy had come to fight. "You know that wasn't what I was talking about."

Red stared at him for a few seconds before he got an answer. "I don't know what you mean. Anyway, if we don't get it fixed, then it'll-"

"There, you did it again!" Red shouted, earning a raise of the eyebrows from the younger boy.

"Did what?" 

"'We should sort it', 'we need to fix it or you won't be able to pull a bowstring', since when has there even been a we? What are you doing here!?" The anger in his voice had returned, but it didn't run deep like before, and it wasn't as fuelled by the alcohol, either. It was gentler, more in control.

"I figured I'd come down and give you a hand." He said, detaching his prosthetic hand and hiding it out. 

Red stared at him for a few seconds, trying desperately but failing to keep the shadow of a smile off his face. "Seriously?"

The teenager sighed. "I knew it was stupid." He answered, reattaching his hand to his arm. "Ollie said you'd think it was funny. I told him it was stupid. Thought I'd give it a try."

"Ollie?" Red raised his eyebrows. "Is that why you're here? Did he send you to babysit me?"

"I told him that you'd want to be alone. He wouldn't listen. He never understood wanting to be alone, he loves people." Red smiled a little at that. He remembered what it was like living with Ollie- and no doubt the other boy did too. He wasn't good with privacy. "I convinced him to let me come instead. Told him I could talk to you."

Red scoffed. "Why would you tell him that?"

"Because I knew you'd just push him away. And I know that because that's what I'd do, too." The guard that he had been keeping up during their conversation crumbled, and he walked forward to sit on the couch next to Red. Red was still resistant to talk to him, but relaxed slightly as the other boy did.

"So? Why do you care? I'm just your clone." He spat the word like they were poison in his mouth, meaning to sound angry but mostly coming out hurt.

"Who says I care?" Was the reply he was met with, which earned the other boy a scowl. The teenager pressed a button on the inside of his mechanical wrist, opening a compartment in his arm. It looked like had tricked out his arm to be able to do even more than Luthor's tech originally could, and Red made a mental note to ask him more about that later. Using his other hand, he pulled out a small first aid kit, and began to deal with Red's profusely bleeding palm. "This is gonna need stitches."

His hands were cold, and moved swiftly, and the deep cut was quickly see up by the younger boy and bandaged expertly. Red could have and would have done that himself, but he merely left the boy to it, curiosity plaguing him. That, and those stitches were neater than anything he could have done with his left hand. 

"If you don't care then why? Why come here? Why do this? It all seems pretty pointless to me."

The boy sighed, finishing up the bandages. They sat there for a moment in silence, heavy breathes and traffic from the open window the only sounds to fill the apartment. Red could see a mild look of hesitation on the other boys face, and for a second he thought that he wasn't going to answer, but after a long silence, he opened his mouth again. Even hen he didn't seem eager to tell.

"I... I may or may not need your help with something."

Red raised his eyebrows at that. Roy Harper, asking for help? That hardly ever happened. Back when Red was the only Roy, he never asked for help. Never. Not unless he'd jumped in head first to something much bigger than he anticipated, or he was chasing down something seriously huge and wasn't sure how to proceed.

He wondered which one it was that had driven the original Speedy to ask him.

Red thought the younger boy would take the silence as his chance to elaborate, but he seemed to be waiting, gauging Red's reaction. Silence enveloped them once again, and Red couldn't stand it anymore. He needed to break it.

"What sort of help." It wasn't really a question. It didn't sound like a question. It was too dry, it sounded more like a statement. The younger boy looked him in the eyes for a second before he turned his gaze to the fresh dent in the wall where the can had been thrown.

"I got a lead on Luthor. And it just happens to be something that I can't do alone." Red tried to ignore the way the teens face contorted like it was physically painful for him to ask for help, but he couldn't let it go unnoticed how hard it must be for the other boy. But that does beg the question; what sort of lead is this if he can't handle it himself, and felt that his clone could help?

A dangerous one, that's what.

He wasn't sure what to do. He knew that it was a bad idea to agree to help him on something that was probably going to be really dangerous. And never agree to something when you're drunk, that's what they say, isn't it? Well, that's what Ollie always told him.

He knew he should be careful, what with Jade trying to get out of the Shadows and now he had Lian to think about. He wanted them to start being a family, he did, and he knew Jade was trying...

So he had to try too. He had to do something to pull himself out of the alcohol filled self loathing pit that he hadn't fallen back into since Jade told him about Lian. And then they went on that big mission to find the real Speedy. Big missions always pulled him out. He needed something to pour his concentration into until he was okay. Okay enough to be able to think of Wally and see the happy memories without the pain. 

"I'm not saying yes, but if I did, what would you need help with?"


	2. Hangover & Sleepover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Red has one hell of a hangover, and the younger version of him that decided to crash on his couch last night is not being very cooperative about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know what to say. I'm a jerk who doesntplan ahead and I so sorry for taking so long to put this up. Please enjoy.

Roy had the mother of all hangovers. Dear god, did his head hurt. He really wanted to pull his lazy ass out of bed and go grab some painkillers, but he was far too exhausted to move. His head hurt too much to even think, and he couldn't seem to muster enough energy to move any of his limbs. He had tried opening his eyes, but after the gross amount of effort that it took to pry his eyelids open, he only slammed them shut again when bright sunlight poured into his vision. 

Why had he put his bed next to a window? It seemed like a good idea at the time. Hell, he had curtains, just a lot of the time he couldn't be assed to pull them on. When he used this bed (which wasn't often, between all night missions, staying at the watchtower, patrol, and the occasional "Please stay the night, Roy! I just want to spend time with my favourite ex-partner!" from Ollie) he was generally too exhausted from his other activities to worry about curtains. The only time he ever really used them was when Jade spent the night, because, well, he didn't really want any of his neighbours to see what they were up to, and he can't always count in not having someone spy on him through his windows with the business that they're in. Villain or ally, Roy knew the number of times people spied on his apartment (through window or bat-tech) was well into the double digits. On second thought, he should probably start using those curtains more.

That doesn't really help with his current problem, though.

And so, as he sat wallowing in the pain of his terrible hangover and the exhaustion of previous day weighing down heavily on him, he found himself unable to think straight. He wasn't even sure what happened to make him get this drunk and exhausted, but whatever it was, it could wait until this headache was gone. He was going to have to move, to get up, to do something, because he was pretty sure his muscles were starting to set in place and might not let him move all day if he doesn't get up now.

So, he gathers all the strength he can find within himself, and cracks open one eye again. It's far too bright for its own good. He groggily pulled himself into a sitting position, ignoring the cold draught that hit him when his bed sheets slid down to bunch around his waist. Did he shut that window? There it was, open and letting in the cool summer breeze, when it should have been closed. Not that he was sober enough to remember what happened last night. He attempted to rub the sleep out of his eyes, then pulled himself to his feet and out of bed, planning to get a glass of water and some painkillers to make his damn headache to away.

He was still half asleep as he made his way through the small apartment towards the "kitchen" area, which was really just a sink, stove and fridge separated from the rest of the apartment by a worse-for-wear breakfast bar. He fumbled with the overhead cupboard for a few seconds, his hand feeling around inside for the small box of pills he was looking for.

"Sleep well?"

It took Red Arrow roughly two seconds to pull out the crossbow he kept hidden next to his fridge and point it toward the voice of whoever thought it was a good idea to be in his apartment at this time of the morning.

"Wow, your reaction time is slow first thing in the morning. If I wanted to kill you I could have done in about ten different ways by now."

Red relaxed slightly in seeing the other red head and not some stranger, but he still didn't completely lower his crossbow. The relief was quickly replaced with confusion, and Red scraped his brain to try and remember whats the hell he did last night that led to Arsenal staying over.

The younger boy just sat up sluggishly, rubbing his eyes, the blanket wrapped tightly around him releasing its hold. He was a little too tall to be sleeping on the couch, and he was curled into a ball to try and fit easier, and that probably hadn't done his back any favours. He looked glad to be sat up, in any case, and he rested his back lazily against the arm of the couch.

"What are you doing here?" 

"You don't remember?" Red answered him with an eyebrow raise and Arsenal just shrugged. "I'm not surprised. You were pretty hammered last night."

As if to answer him, another blast of pain hit his head and Reds attention was suddenly redirected back to the box of painkillers in his hand. Deciding that the boy probably wasn't here to try and kill him, so wasn't an immediate threat and could therefore be dealt with later (or at least after this damn headache was gone), he went to pour himself a glass of water.

Arsenal got up from his pseudo bed and followed him to the sink, wordlessly. He leant against the protruding breakfast bar while Red reached for a cup and ran the water, the sound of the tap running soothing his aching mind. Arsenal kept to his heels like a lost puppy, never once leaving his side. 

"What are you doing here?" Red repeated this time with less confusion and more anger. He put two painkiller tablets on his tongue then washed them both down with a big gulp of water.

"I made a house call last night to come and check on you." He replied flippantly, sloppily covering a yawn with the back of his hand. "Good job too. You wouldn't have been able to patch your hand in the state you were in."

Arsenal paused and looked down at Red's neatly bandaged hand, and Red followed his gaze, lifting his hand up to his eyes. It was well bandaged. Red wasn't sure if he'd have been able to wrap it that neatly even if he wasn't drunk out of his mind.

"You really don't remember? Anything?"

Red was clawing at his brain. He could remember throwing a beer can at the wall, and he could see the dent that proved that bit was true. Why did he throw a can at the wall? Oh, right, because he cut his hand on it. Duh. Before that, he could remember wanting to get very drunk. He could remember Arsenal being here and...

And he could remember Wally's funeral.

Suddenly Roy longed for that time a few minutes ago when he had a raging headache and that was his biggest problem. His legs must have given out at some point because suddenly Arsenal was right there, holding him, he didn't feel his knees let go but that was a much more legitimate explanation than Arsenal hugging him of his own accord. 

He pulled away and looked awkwardly at the door, as if contemplating running and getting out of this situation. But as his eyes left they door and caught Red's, something steeled in them, almost like he was trying to silently promise something, though whether it was to Red or himself he didn't know. Red pulled his eyes away, and looked towards his fridge, pretending to contemplate his breakfast, but in reality just needing a moment to not have Arsenal's eye burn into him.

"What are you doing here?" He said after a pause, and it was almost a whisper, because this time he wasn't angry, not surprised or caught of guard, just curious.

"I already told you." Came the reply, quick and sharp just as Red would expect him to be.

"No you didn't." Red said quietly, shaking his head. "You gave me some short bullshit answer. I want truth."

"I did tell your the truth." The younger boy repeated quietly, the fingers on his organic hand subconsciously sliding over the buttons on his bionic arm. Nervous habit, Red thought bitterly. He used to always reach for an arrow when he melt threatened, even when he didn't have a quiver. You have to stop habits like that before they become a problem. "I made a house call. To check up on you." 

Red rolled his eyes and made his way past the breakfast bar to his fridge. This was way too much to take in before breakfast. "Yeah, I know. that's what you keep saying."

Arsenal followed him, never leaving his side for a second. He did a surprisingly good impression of a limpit. "I keep saying it because its true."

That earned another roll off the eyes from Red. "Why? It doesn't sound like you to just drop in out of the kindness of your heart."

All Red could make out was a low mumble that he could only translate into an "I don't know", but it was mostly drowned out by the clunky sound of the fridge door opening, and the slightly-louder-than-it-should-be whirring noise his fridge always made when the light turned on. He should probably get that fixed, but it's not like he was here enough to care.

He heard Arsenal sigh from behind him. "It's nothing big, just Ollie seemed pretty worried. I think he would've flipped if he'd have come over here and seen you in a really bad state, so I said I'd come. No big."

Red gave a light laugh as his eyes continued to scan the fridge for... Sandwich ingredients? Yeah, a breakfast sandwich sounded good. "Yeah right." Red muttered, reaching inside the fridge to grab some ham he had spotted towards the back. He turned it over to check whether it was still good or not. It wasn't.

"Dude, you don't even need to check the date on that ham. It's got green stuff growing out of it."

Red cringed when he saw the disgusting fungi and threw the ham in the vague direction of the trash can. "Yeah, well it expired like two years ago anyway." Red went back to searching for his sandwich filling, and Arsenal went back to standing awkwardly close to him.

"So, when you were getting smashed last night..." Arsenal started, only to be faced neither a very angry looking Red who was no longer scanning for refrigerated sandwich ingredients.

"Oh god, I knew it." He started, shaking his head. "What did I do?"

"Oh, nothing!" Arsenal looked slight taken back by the question, but he continued anyway. "Well, you did say that you would help me with this case I'm working on." He stopped and looked at Red closely, as if analysing his reaction.

"Did I?" Red was pretty sure he didn't, because if Ollie had taught him anything it was don't agree to things while your drunk. He had personally seen and laughed up close at the type of situations it could put a person in, so he always remembered to remember it. He was considering having it tattooed, if his drinking habits as of late were any indication of the future, it might be a vital piece of information for him. He just wanted to see where Arsenal was going with this.

"Yeah, you did." He was stood tall and confident, as if he had full faith in that what he was saying was the truth. And Red would have believed him, if he didn't know himself, and if he didn't know the other boy well enough to pick up on the way his fingers nervously slid over the buttons on his arm. Nervous tick. It was small, but it was there. 

They had a mini stare off for a few moments, each silently daring the other to speak first, but it was Arsenal who eventually broke the silence. "You said that you could help me chase up this lead I'm working on."

There were a lot of questions rolling around insides Red's mind, but in the end he just ending up with the simplest; "What lead?" Red asked, curiosity penetrating his voice. 

That wasn't what he'd wanted to say. He'd wanted to say something much better, like...

What lead could you possibly need help with? What lead could possibly drive you to asking for help? You, the proudest person I know? The loner? What could be so hard to crack that you'd come to me of all people?

"I've been tracking LexCorp every since I... got out of there," he was doing that nervous tick again, "and I know they're up to something. Luthor recently spent just over a million dollars on a mysterious something, and moved another three million into a secure offshore account."

Red let his sandwich be forgotten, if just so he could humour the boy. "So what? Luthor moves money all the time, and how do you know that he didn't just buy something really expensive?"

Arsenal let out a chuckle. "What could a person buy that is worth three million dollars!?"

Red gave a small shrug. "A solid gold car, a diamond chandelier, lifetime membership to Club Penguin. You grew up with Ollie, I would expect you of all people to know the ridiculous things people can spend huge sums of money on."

"Yeah, I know, but this is Luthor we're talking about! He's doing something really evil!" Arsenal cried, clearly getting annoyed at Red's reluctance to believe him.

"Oh yeah?" Red replied, taking a step towards the younger version of him. "How do you know he's doing something 'really evil'?" 

Arsenal stood firm, not once breaking eye contact, and Red didn't even need to move his eyes. He could see the nervous tick out in his peripheral vision. "I just know, okay! I can feel it in my gut."

"Feel it in your gut?" Red asked, disbelieving. "Please tell me your kidding. The last time you followed your gut instinct on something, you-"

"Shut up!" Arsenal growled. "If your not going to help me then fine, I'll just leave! I can do this myself!"

Red saw his nervous tick again, and then it all clicked. He didn't need help, he could do this by himself if he wanted to. All he was doing was inviting people to say that he was crazy, and that Luthor wasn't up to anything,when there isn't much of anything he couldn't handle on himself. And it was at that moment, with Arsenal stood in front of him threatening to leave, but standing perfectly still like he had no intention of doing so, that he finally understood.

He didn't need help.

He wanted it.

He wasn't nervous.

He was afraid.

The last time he'd done that... investigated a case on his own, the same company too, it hadn't gone too well for him.

The last time he had followed his gut instinct he had lost eight years of his life.

"Okay. I'll help you." Red gave in with a sigh, turning his head back towards his cupboards. If he was going to help the kid, the least Arsenal could do was let him get some breakfast first. Maybe he had some cereal...

"Really?" Red shot a glance over his shoulder, trying to gauge Arsenal's reaction. The younger archer looked shocked, like he hadn't expected Red to say yes, even though he showed no signs of leaving his apartment. "You'll help me?"

Red had to hold in the chuckle that threatened to escape his lips at the eagerness of the kid. It was a good job he had his head in the cabinets, otherwise the smile on his face would have been unmissable. The kid just didn't want to go alone. "That's what I said, isn't it?" He looked Arsenal in the eyes. "I was being mean before."

"I'm not a baby. I don't need you to sugar coat things for me." Arsenal sighed.

"I won't sugar coat," Red started, "but I'll apologise when I've been mean. Sorry."

"It's okay, just a touchy subject." Arsenal still looked in shock. "I just wasn't expecting you to help me, honestly."

Red raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"

"I don't know," Arsenal answer with a shrug and a tilt of his head, "or I at least didn't expect you to give in so fast."

Red smirked and raised an eyebrow. "Who said I'm giving in? You've made me curious, that's all. And anyway," Red started, "We're going to have to talk, and I'm fresh out of groceries. Want to order a pizza?"

That got a small chuckle out of Arsenal. "Pizza? Really? It's ten AM."

Red just grabbed the phone off of the counter top and started to dial. "There's no wrong time for a pizza. If you don't want any, then I can eat while you talk."

"Well, I won't say no to free pizza." Arsenal retorted with grin.

"Hey, I don't remember saying free." Red shot back easily with smile, just as the call started to go through.

"I thought it was implied." Arsenal answered, watching Red with a smile, before adding, "get pepperoni. And no veggie crap, either." And Red could only smile and shake his head.

They didn't hate each other. Their was no anger between them as Red stood there and waited for the pizza place to pick up, and they could talk to each other. It almost felt like they could be friends, like the spark of possibility was there, if Arsenal wasn't only here for help and Red couldn't think of the word friend without thinking of Wally and thinking of Wally made him want to crawl into a hole in the ground and never come out, so he could settle for them being civil acquaintances.

Thirty minutes later, the pizza had arrived, and Red spent ten of those minutes looking for plates or utensils or any kind of eating thing that he could set out and not look like the kind of guy who ate Chinese food with his hands out of a bag every night. Arsenal didn't really seem to care that much, he was the one who suggested that they just eat it off of the box, but that was probably because he could see how much trouble Red was having trying to find utensils. They paid for it with Red's credit card- and by Red's credit card he really means the card he took from Ollie, but Ollie won't mind because anything to get his estranged son to like him again, and although that can be quite irritating at times, it's good having access to his banking funds.

They sat around Red's small table, pizza slices in hand, and talked.

"So," Red began, swallowing a cheesy mouthful. "This lead. What do you plan on doing about it?"

Arsenal raised his eyes from the pizza to look at Red. "You mean what am I planning to used this information for?" Red nodded. "I have something else too. A shipment."

Red raised an eyebrow. "A shipment of what?"

"No idea." Arsenal replied with a shrug. "But it cost Luthor half a million dollars, so it's probably something big."

"Half a million dollars? In one shipment?" Red asked with a raise of his eyebrows. Arsenal just nodded. "Must be something really big. Where's it being shipped from?"

"I'm not sure." Arsenal answered before taking another bite of his pizza.

"So what exactly do you know about it?"

Arsenal finished chewing the bite that was already in his mouth and swallowed, throwing down his pizza crust and picking up another slice of pepperoni goodness. "Not an awful lot. But it's suspicious, so I figured I'd look into it."

Red nodded slowly. "Yeah, that seems like the best course of action." He watched Arsenal cram another slice of pizza in his mouth and swallow before he asked his next question. "Do you at least know where it's being shipped to?"

Arsenal smiled and nodded. "The ships coming in to Happy Harbour this afternoon. Two o clock."

Red furrowed his brows. "That's weird."

Arsenal raised an eyebrow. "What? Luthor ships to Happy Harbour all the time."

"That's not what I meant. It's not like Luthor to do a huge deal in broad daylight like this. Not his MO." Red said, biting his lip thoughtfully.

"It's not a deal, just a delivery, as far as I know." Arsenal grabbed another slice of pizza.

Red rolled his eyes. "You just said you didn't know what it was or where it came from. Sure, it's a delivery and Luthor already paid, but how do you know there won't be a deal involved with some third party?"

Arsenal bit his lip. "I guess that's possible. Figured I'd stake the place out and gather a bit of intel, lay low, if you want to tag along."

Red swallowed his current mouthful and let out a small laugh. "No offence, but I've seen your corrupt definition of laying low. You don't exactly the same information gathering techniques as normal people do."

"That's the point." Arsenal said, putting down another crust. "They've never seen anything like me before." Red let out a chuckle and raised an eyebrow at him. "You know what I mean. They've never seen anyone that works like I do. They don't know how to work against it. I mean, let's face it, we might look the same but we don't exactly use similar methods, do we?"

Red nodded slowly. "Okay, I see your point. I'll come, see what we can't find. If we can find anything."

Arsenal snorted. "We'll find something. I can just feel it."

Red suddenly had the urge to announce again that last time he "just felt it" he got captured and cloned, but he repressed it in honour of an indignant sigh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it:) new chapter next week (I will try my very hardest).
> 
> Much love<3


	3. Science & Concern

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Red Arrow and Arsenal stakeout the harbour for Luthor's mysterious shipment, and Red informs Arsenal on the benefits of not getting dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to post this forever ago, but life happened, and I only just had a major burst of inspiration today. I still hope you enjoy it!!!

"Why are we here?" Red asked, sat in position on a rooftop opposite the ship they were watching dock.

"I told you. We're watching for that ship." Arsenal answered stonily from his sniper position on the other side of the harbour. It sounded like he was focusing one hundred percent on watching the ships, like he might miss it if he wasn't careful. 

"Yeah, I know, that's what you keep saying." Red whispered into his comm link, irritability from the long stakeout starting to settle in. "But you don't know what the ship looks like, where it's coming from, where it's going, what it's carrying..."

"Okay, okay!" Arsenal never once took his eyes off the harbour, ready to spring into action at any moment. "I know I wasn't exactly forthcoming with information. I'm not really sure enough on all that stuff to give you anything solid. But I know it's coming." Arsenal lifted his eyes to the rooftop Red was sat on for a second. "Probably." He added as a quiet whisper.

"Wait a second!" Red muttered angrily into his comm, his eyes going over to see the other boy who was watching like a hawk. "Are you telling me now that we came all the way down here and sat around staring at a dock for four hours on information that may or may not be right?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Did I not make that clear during pizza time?"

Red narrowed his eyes. "No. You did not make that clear during pizza time. And I'm not paying for you to eat again."

That earned a scoff from Arsenal. "Please, be real. That pizza came out of Ollie's bank account."

Red went silent and continued to watch the dock. It was now almost six o clock, the shipment was due in just a little under four hours ago, and Red was not happy. This felt like a waste of a day.

"Where did you even get this mysterious lead from anyway?" Red asked, slightly annoyed at the faulty information. 

Arsenal seemed to be keeping his spirits up just fine, though. "I have my sources." He whispered.

"That's pretty cryptic." Red whispered back, and after that they went silent for a little while longer.

"So," Arsenal started, ignoring the glare sent at him by Red from across the harbour. "How are you?"

Red flicked his eyes over to Arsenal in a movement so subtle he couldn't possibly have caught it from across the pier. "What, you mean besides the faulty information and the waste of four hours?" Arsenal nodded, but kept his eyes on the dock. "Alright. Why?"

"I'm trying to be nice, you could at least give me a little something to work with." Arsenal replied with a huff.

It's more than that, Red thought idly. The way he said it wasn't just small talk, chatter between friends , it was... concern. Like he wanted to know how Red really was. 

"I just guess I could be better." It wasn't meant to sound sappy, but he didn't really want it to come out sounding so bitter, either. He waited for Arsenal to reply for a few seconds, and when he didn't, Red thought it fell to him to apologise. "Sorry. I'm being mean."

Arsenal was sat all the way across the harbour, but Red could still see him nod. "It's okay. You've got stuff. I get that."

Red let out a light laugh, not loud enough to out them as hiding, but apparently loud enough for Arsenal to hear it and turn his head towards him. Red wasn't sure why he felt so relived that Arsenal wasn't mad at him, but it felt nice that someone understood that he had stuff going on. He was having a hard time just getting up in the morning, not that he'd ever admit it to anyone. Especially Ollie. Just imagine all the overprotective parenting.

Green Arrow was pretty underestimated by villains and other heroes alike. When he gets mad, he's easily just as scary as Batman, maybe even more (though Red will deny that if he ever asks). And when he gets protective? If Ollie wanted to baby him, really wanted to and had no doubts about 'whether he should be allowed to be his own person' (Dinah's words) then he wouldn't be going anywhere.

As much as he really hated Ollie, he also really loved him. True, he wasn't his dad. No one was. His dad was awesome. But Ollie was great in his own special way. They were family, whether he liked it or not, even if Ollie was annoying and he was a terrible son. He should really go visit at some point, once he gets his life sorted out. Gets everything straight.

"So are you really okay?" This time he wasn't trying to hide the hidden meaning behind the question. "I mean, I know you have a lot of stuff, and I don't think anyone in your position would be okay, and this is probably a really insensitive way to phrase the question? But are you okay? Because you know that anyone would be willing to help you, all you have to do is let us..."

"I don't need help." Red snapped, a little angrier than intended. It was a lie. He knew it. He was pretty sure Arsenal knew it, because he really did need help, but he wouldn't take it. Not from them. He could help himself.

"Okay, I'm not saying you do." Arsenal almost whispered, trying to use what Red assumed was supposed to be a calming tone but sounded more angry and frustrated. "I'm just saying that if you ever do need it, if your ever not okay, that everyone is here for you. Well, not everyone. A lot of people."

Red sighed. "I know. Thanks." He wasn't finished, he had more things to say, but he was pulled out of his conversation by movement out of the corner of his eye. He snapped his neck around to look, instinctively, and saw it. A big, regular looking cargo ship with "LexCorp" written across the side. Arsenal seemed to notice it too, because there was no more vocal prodding from him over the comm link, just silence, concentration. Of course, Red was too focused to actually look at Arsenal and check.

They watched the ship as it pulled in to dock, and two big men with big guns got off to guard the door. Which all seemed very legitimate for an illegal transporting. A black car pulled up in front of the ship, and out got two more goons, followed by none other than Lex Luthor himself, and his cyber secretary/bodyguard, Mercy. That was strange, it wasn't like Lex to show up to something as simple as a shipping. A glorified delivery. Why would someone as important as him show up at such a mundane event? It was interesting.

A small man in a lab coat scuttled off the boat towards Luthor, an industrial briefcase with a double chrome plated lock and an identity recognition scanner in his hands. The case was very heavily secured, much more heavily secured than any normal thing would be. They talked, and Arsenal had left a bug over by the dock so they could listen to it later, but Red was very curious as to what they were discussing. Speaking of Arsenal, he was utilising his better vantage point to get the whole thing on camera, another upgrade he added to that arm of his. A secret camera. Red was really going to have to get a list of everything that arm could do because he was starting to lose track.

Now it was Red's time to shine. He reached into his quiver and knocked an arrow, not a regular arrow, the special sort of arrow that would silently place a tracker that they could follow to wherever Lex was hiding. Once Red had locked on his target, which took less than a second thanks to his excellent marksmanship skills and the sniper position he was in, he let the arrow fly silently through the air until it scratched the back of the shady looking car that Lex had arrived in. On contact the arrow will have released thousands of nano trackers (or nanites, as Ollie called them, which is a weird name but one Roy wouldn't deny had a ring to it) into the body work of the car, meaning that there was no real way to extract them other than to drive the car off a cliff (hopefully- it was one of Red's newer designs, and although he had tested it throughly, and frankly way more than an arrow need to be tested, it was still its first real run out in the field). Once the arrow successfully did its job and he got the thumbs up from Arsenal signalling that the nano tracers were in and online, all that was left to do was watch and wait for something to happen. Once they left, the plan was that Arsenal and Red were going to head back to the apartment, sort through the footage and audio they gathered, look at the nano trackers to see where that car and the goons had escorted Luthor, and then formulate their next plan. However, all they could do right now was watch.

The small man in the lab coat opened the briefcase to Luthor, who smiled and nodded. Red couldn't seem the contents of the briefcase, but he could see Lex's smug little face clear as day and he was happy about whatever was in there. Very happy. 

That strange amount of happy that Lex always seems to get whenever something terrible is about to happen.

Red couldn't shake off the very bad feeling that had suddenly taken over him. He didn't know what was in that case, but in the grand scheme of things it probably wasn't going to benefit anyone that wasn't Luthor himself.

Arsenal looked like he was about to jump into action and start beating guards down. "Arsenal, keep your cover."

"Why?" Arsenal demanded. "They deserve a good beat down."

"I know." Red muttered. He really did know. It was because of him that Wally was gone, that son-of-bitch, but he had to keep a level head in these situations. "Blowing our cover and potentially getting us killed isn't the way to go when it comes to stopping Luthor." 

Arsenal scoffed. "I could take them."

"You might be able to, but with all those people and Mercy there, I don't like the idea of you taking your chances." Red whispered, watching Luthor get back into the black car as one of the goons opened the door for him, and the small man in the lab coat return to his ship.

"I don't take orders from you." Arsenal was still angry, but he seemed to calm down once all the people had left. "Anyway, I've taken Mercy on before and won."

Red scoffed. "No, you've taken Mercy on before and fought to a standstill. That's not the same as winning."

"I beat Mercy!" Arsenal tried to sound triumphant, but he just sounded angry. "It was Luthor than I fought to a standstill. And I would have won, too."

Red looked over at him, and Arsenal was looking at his arm, nervously fiddling with the buttons again. "But you chose satisfaction. Remember that?"

"Yeah, I remember that." Arsenal started. "Look, if your going to try and make me feel bad for the decisions I've made, it's not going to work. Yes I did it, but I'd do it again if-"

"Hey, hey, calm down." Red muttered, cutting Arsenal off. "I'm not going to yell at you for the decisions you made. I know how it feels to have people yell at you for what you choose." An image of Wally yelling at him for getting hitched to a villain flashed through his mind, but he repressed it. "The truth is, if I was in that situation, I'd have probably done the same thing. But you getting yourself into that situation in the first place was stupid, so I'm not going to stand by and watch you take your chances with Luthor alone again."

Arsenal was silent for a second. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." Red whispered in return.

There was another moment of silence as they heard the engine of the car fade into the distance and they knew that Luthor had really left. "Hey," Arsenal whispered, starting to leave his hiding spot but still being careful for anyone who might still be around. "I won't have much fun strangling Luthor if I get killed."

Red smiled and started to move himself. "That's the spirit."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Fran, if she reads this, because I know she's had to go through some crap lately and if I can make her smile even a teeny bit then that's a win:) x


	4. Bond & Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Red and Arsenal go over the footage they got of Lex at the docks, and Arsenal gets curious about Red's personal life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so sorry for how long this took. It's been just under a year since I last updated this story, and honestly, I don't have a good excuse. I've just been incredibly busy in the last year and I've not really had the chance to think about this story much.
> 
> Also, I feel the need to point out, that this is probably the wrong time to start picking up old stories I'd forgotten about since I start my GCSEs in just over two weeks, so I'm about to have my life be entirely ruled by exams. So this isn't so much a triumphant return to this story so much as it is a reminder that I'm still alive, and I still know this story exists.
> 
> I'm super sorry, but my exams finish on around the 20th of June (I forget the exact date), and after that, I will have an entire summer of no worries and lots of time to write and work on things. This is one of the things that I intend to work on. 
> 
> Sorry for the long ass authors note, but to conclude; my life is hella booked up due to exams, but I will still try to churn out fiction as fast as possible for all of you lovely people reading this. Enough rambling from me, I hope you enjoy the chapter!

Back at Reds apartment, Arsenal had set up his laptop so that they could see where Luthor was going, and had already started downloading the footage on his arm into the device. He had set up camp in Red's front room- he had bags and tech cluttering his small apartment, and the table was covered in various screens, keyboards and holo-computers.

"Please tell me that upload is almost done?"

"I'm just looking through the footage now." Arsenal replied, not taking his eyes off the screen.

Red came up behind him to watch over his shoulder, despite the glare that got thrown his way. "I don't like people looking over my shoulder, you know." 

Red just laughed. "Yeah, I do know. I know most things about you firsthand, remember?"

Arsenal didn't say anything after that, and he probably would have blushed if he didn't get so good at controlling his embarrassment so long ago.

They sat in silence for a while, Arsenal scrolling through a few hours of footage and audio, before they came across the important stuff.

"There." Arsenal announced, switching the video from fast forward to normal play, pointing to the large ship that was sailing towards the dock. 

"Yes, I know." Red acknowledged with a roll of his eyes. "I can see the giant ass boat sailing right into the shot."

Arsenal shot another look over his shoulder. 

"Sorry. I was being mean again, wasn't I." It wasn't a question, more of a statement, but Arsenal nodded all the same.

"Yeah. Just watch the footage." 

Arsenal hit play, and they both watched with deep concentration what was happening on the screen. Lex pulled up in his car of darkness with his big goons towering over him, and the small man in the lab coat scuttled off the ship, but it was the next conversation that they were most interested in.

"Well?" Lex prompted, causing the small man to flinch slightly. "Do you have it?"

"Oh, yes sir, Mr Luthor!" The man said, his voice an octave or so lower than Red expected it to be. He seemed quite threated by the goons that Luthor had brought with him, which is odd, since people usually only do business with Lex if they're tough enough to survive in the criminal underworld. This guy looks like he could be swallowed whole by a large pigeon and not put up much of a fight. 

He proceeded to open the heavily locked case that he held in his hands, and Red watched his every movement as closely as he could. After he had opened the case, Arsenal rewound the video and replayed that section, slowing it down and zooming in on his hands to see how he opened the case. The was a regular lock that he opened with a key, then a fingerprint scanner, followed by a code lock and another regular lock and key style latch. Except the last lock seemed to be some kind of tech lock, that could only be opened by a kind of encryption key that Red had never seen before. 

Extra security was way understating it. This briefcase was more secure than most military volts.

After that section, Arsenal let the video play at normal speed again.

"Is that it?" Luthor asked, smiling and nodding at the little green bottle nestled cosily in the briefcase.

"Yes, sir. That's the only vial of it to exist in the world right now." The small man bumbled, pushing his glasses further up his face. 

Luthor looked at it with that smile, exuding that happiness that seemed to foreshadow bad things in the near future, then gently placed it back in its maximum security briefcase.

The small man piped up again. "And you said you can reproduce it? It could be extremely powerful in the right hands." 

Red scoffed a little. Luthor was far from the 'right hands', that was sure.

"Yes, I'm sure I'll be able to reverse engineer it. Shouldn't be too hard." Lex paused and looked at the man. "You say you got this from the Reach ship?"

The man nodded, and Arsenal and Red exchanged a glance that basically said "this cannot be good".

"Excellent." Lex muttered absently, still staring at the little bottle even as the man started to close the case.

After that nothing else was said, and all they could do was watch Lex get into his car and watch the small man scurry back to his ship.

There was silence for a while, Arsenal controlling the holo-screen via the controls on his bionic arm. It looked like he was working on getting up the tracking details on Luthor, and Red was perfectly okay with watching him work in silence.

Apparently Arsenal was not.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" Arsenal asked, out of the blue.

Red was tempted to pull the whole 'you just did' thing on the kid, but he remembers how much that used to annoy him when Ollie did it.

"Shoot."

"Okay," Arsenal started, lifting his eyes from the holo-screen now that it didn't need him to steer it anymore. "I can't out hack Batman, so I can't get into his records. And Ollie's computer system is practically prehistoric," Red snorted, he used to tell Ollie over and over again that it needed an upgrade, "so I've read next to nothing about you and your life."

"Okay..." Red prompted, curious as to where the younger boy was going with this.

"It's just... I hardly know anything about you. Do you have a real life? Like with people in it? Do you have a job? Do you do things that aren't superhero related? I mean, I don't actually know what you do with your time, and you can't possibly just be Red Arrow all the time, right? Do you do things as Roy too?"

Red smiles as thoughts of Lian and Jade crossed into his mind. "Yeah, sometimes. Why?"

Arsenal's eyes were flicking back and forth between the screen and Red, something seeming to need his attention but wanting to hear the story as well. He seemed good at multitasking, if right now was anything to go by. "Just wanted to know. What sort of things do you do?"

Red thought for a second. "I've been trying to get my life together. You know, sort myself out. I want to have a happy life, that's all, and it was all going pretty well until..."

An image of Wally's face, smiling and happy, probably planning a stupid prank or something equally ridiculous flashed through his brain, and he found it hard to breathe all of a sudden. 

Arsenal seemed to pick up on it and changed the subject. "So you found me and then decided it was time to get your life in order again?"

Red hesitated for a second before he answered. "Yeah, but I started trying to sort my life out before that."

That seemed to surprise Arsenal, because his eyes widened for a second, and he sat up a little straighter, like he knew what Red was going to say and that wasn't it. "Really? Why? Other than wanting to be better, I guess." He stopped and thought for a second. "I thought I heard Ollie say that you were too stubborn to stop ruining yourself over me."

"Well, Jade talked me into it, to be honest." Red said, getting up to go pour himself a glass of water. "You want anything to drink?"

"Yeah, can I have a glass of water?" Red keeps forgetting that they're the same person. Sometimes, they're just so different, they clash with opinions so often that it's so easy to forget that they're the same. It's so easy to forget that he's just a carbon copy of someone else. It was just so easy to forget that they were the same, because they weren't.

"So," Arsenal started again, "who's Jade?"

Red stopped for a second and mentally cursed. Shit. No one told Arsenal about Jade. Which probably means that no one told Arsenal about Lian, and this is always an awkward conversation to have. 

He filled both glasses with water, and he could feel Arsenal's eyes burning into his back.

"Is she your girlfriend?" Arsenal asked with a grin from the couch.

Red walked back over and handed him his glass. "She's my wife."

Arsenal's eyes almost doubled in size, but the quickly got himself under control. "Your wife?" He was clearly shocked, that much was obvious, but he tried to conceal it. "Wow. Congratulations, I guess. You're supposed to say congratulations when someone gets married, right?" 

Red laughed. "Well, thanks anyway. We've been married for a few years though, so I'm not sure that I still need congratulating."

"Really?" Arsenal looked actually surprised this time, and wasn't making any effort to hide it this time. "I had no idea." He looked lost for words.

"What? I don't strike you as the kind of person who could hold down a long term relationship?" Red teased with a smile. 

Every so often, him and Arsenal could be comfortable around each other. There wasn't hate there like Red thought there would be, like the hate Red had for himself for stealing eight years of the younger boy’s life.

"I don't even know. I never thought about it. It never even crossed my mind." He still looked a little shocked, but he seemed more relaxed now. "So, do I get to meet this woman of yours?" He asked with a smile.

"Probably, I don't see why not." Red answered, taking a sip of his water. Got to stay hydrated in this business. "She'll probably be back some time soon, I asked her for some space because of..." Red trailed off, thinking back to the last time he spoke with his wife. 

Him telling her that he needed the space, and that he just didn't want to be around her or Lian right now. That he didn't want them to see him like... Well, the way he was. Jade understood, of course, she was brilliant, and if anyone understands needing space it's her. But she made sure that she told him before she left that she and Lian love him, and that when he was ready they would get through it together. She probably wouldn't be gone for long, he didn't think she would run out on him, not after how hard they worked the first time. They could get through this too.

"Because of all the stuff that happened." Arsenal finished for him, nodding sympathetically.

"Yeah." Red swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to continue. "I think she'll be back pretty soon, she'll want to meet you. She's kind of the reason that we found you, so you should really thank her."

Arsenal raised his eyebrows. "Really? How come Ollie or Batman or Nightwing never brought her up?"

"She helped me off-the-record." Red added, clarifying.

"So she's not League?" Arsenal asked. Red knew what he meant by not League. He meant she's not an affiliate of any of the Justice League teams, which leaves few other options and the cogs were probably starting to turn in Arsenals head already.

"Depends what league you’re talking about.”

Arsenal’s brows furrowed. “What does that mean?”

“She used to be with a league." Red mumbled, taking another drink from his water. "The League of Assassins."

"Wait, what?" Arsenal questioned, sitting up fully straight. "You married an assassin?"

Red would've snickered at the look on Arsenal's face right now, if it didn't seem like such an important time. "Yeah, that's the story in a nutshell."

Arsenal looked like he had just been slapped in the face. "Seriously? How did you even meet?"

Red thought back to the first time he met Jade, her Cheshire mask worn so proudly on her face while she killed people. She didn't do that anymore, though.  
"We met on the job." Red replied with a small smile. He was so stubborn back then, so adamant to work alone and find his own way into the Justice League. That was the wrong way to go.

"You mean you stopped her trying to kill someone and you just connected!?" It looked like Arsenal was having a hard time believing all if this, and Red couldn't really blame him. If someone would have told him this six years ago he would have laughed in their face.

"It wasn't exactly like that." He wasn't sure how it actually did happen, if he was honest. Whole years of his life were just a long blur, but he could remember certain things. He did have some good memories of that time, even if he was drunk for most of it. He hung on to those memories.

"Is there anyone that actually knows about this?" Arsenal questioned persistently.

"Yeah, a few people, why?" Red asked, raising an eyebrow.

Arsenal still looked pretty dumbstruck. "And they approve?"

Red chuckled a little. "Well, Ollie flipped a table when he found out, bu-"

"Wait, hang on." Arsenal interrupted. "Ollie knows about this? And you're still out here living your life instead of wrapped in six layers of bubble wrap and tied to the sofa in his basement?"

Red couldn't help but laugh, since that had been exactly what happened when Ollie had found out about Jade, but he managed to talk Ollie into letting him go. He could handle himself, and Ollie knew that, even if he didn’t want to believe it. He had made some very bad decisions over the course of his life, though, so he couldn’t really blame anyone for being apprehensive.

"Yeah, I managed to explain everything to him." Red replied with a smile. It wasn't quite as simple as that, but it was a very long story that Red just didn't feel like divulging. Ollie would probably tell him eventually, anyway.

"Wow, so one of the League of Assassins was partially responsible for saving me." Arsenal took another gulp of his water. "So, any other bombshells your waiting to drop, or..?" He trailed off at the end, and Red knew he wanted to know. It was probably a trust thing, the kid did seem like he had trust issues. 

"Well, there is Lian..." Red thought he'd mentioned Lian before, but if Arsenal didn't know about Jade, then the chances of Red having brought up Lian and Arsenal not asking question after question about her, were very, very low.

"Lian?" Arsenal asked, tilting his head slightly in confusion. "I think Ollie mentioned her before. What is she, an ex girlfriend serial killer or something?"

Red rolled his eyes. "I don't have a thing for murders, idiot." Arsenal just raised his eyebrows. "Sorry. I'm being mean again, right?"

"Yeah, but I kind of asked for it that time." Arsenal muttered with a small smile. "So, who is Lian?"

"She's my daughter." Red said, turning away from Arsenal's face to take another sip of water. When he turned his attention back to the younger ex archer, he had to stop himself from laughing and spitting water all over the computers in the table in front of them. Arsenal was sat with his eyebrows knotted together, staring right at him like he was waiting for Red to say ‘haha, fooled ya!’or something equally as Ollie-ish. Red stopped himself laughing, but he couldn't keep the small smile from meeting his face. He was waiting for Arsenal to talk first, but it didn't look like that was going to happen, so Red spoke anyway. "What?"

Arsenal continued to look pretty dumbstruck. "I don't know. It's just... You're not just messing with me, right?"

Red laughed. "It'd be pretty lame prank."

Arsenal continued to look gob smacked. "It's just weird... Never mind."

Red raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"No, it doesn't matter." Arsenal almost whispered, shaking his head.

Red narrowed his eyes, but decided to drop it for now. "Okay, whatever." Red sighed with a shake of his head, deciding not to question it anymore. For now, anyway. "Is that thing done yet or what?"

"Just a couple more seconds..." Arsenal trailed off towards the end, typing something into the holographic screen floating in the air. Red hated a lot about the holo-computers, but if there was one good thing about them, they were space savers, that's for sure. You wouldn't believe the amount of storage that had been freed up since everything went holographic.

"It's done." Arsenal announced, his claim supported by the little ping of the computer finishing its search. "That took forever. Your tracking tech could use a lot of work."

"Hey, I'm not Batman, okay? Take what you can get or get out of my apartment." Red barked, before he came up behind Arsenal to look at the results on the screen.

Arsenal turned away from the results just to raise his eyebrows at Red. 

"I'm being mean again, right?" Red asked with a small sigh. He really didn't mean to upset the younger boy, or anyone really, but he had a habit of using his snappiness to push   
people away, and since he recently lost one of the only people to ever see past his snappiness (he tried to not let the pain show on his face as the thoughts of Wally passed through his mind again), he had started making an effort to dial it down, in an effort to stop pushing people away (like Wally said he should).

"It's okay." Arsenal replied with a smile, turning back to the matter at hand. "So, it took a little longer, but I got Luthor's entire route plus where the car is parked now. Also as a bonus I checked all the security cameras in that surrounding area and managed to piece where Luthor went on foot from there, so I can say with about ninety six percent certainty that he's hiding out in this warehouse."

Arsenal had pulled up a map of an area in downtown Star, showing a seemingly abandoned warehouse just within the borders of the Glades. Lex wasn't the type of villain or man to conduct any sort of business in a place like that, usually opting for a LexCorp building or a high security office despite how obvious a headquarters it may appear. But for Lex to be working off the grid like this... It must be something really big.

Something much, much bigger than any of them.


	5. Work & Walk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back at Red's apartment, the boys watch the surveillance footage on Luthor and talk about Red's life outside of the mask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha hey remember me??? I'm continuing the tradition of literally updating this story once a year except this time it's literally closer to two years than to one year ffs. Idk if anyone who was reading this originally has stuck with me to this point (almost four years now!! wow five chapters in four years name a More Useless Author) but I really would like to finish this thing after all the time and long running effort that's gone into it lol. Also I literally wrote this a year ago I just never posted it don't ask me why I'm just The Worst™ anyway here it is I hope you like it, I'll try to keep it coming?? I know I say that every time and then don't update for a year but like I have a lot already written so I can at least post that. yeah anyway I hope y'all are good enjoy!!!!

Back at Reds apartment, Arsenal had set up his laptop so that they could see where Luthor was going, and had already started downloading the footage on his arm into the device. He had set up camp in Red's front room- he had bags and tech cluttering his small apartment, and the table was covered in various screens, keyboards and holo-computers.

"Please tell me that upload is almost done?"

"I'm just looking through the footage now." Arsenal replied, not taking his eyes off the screen.

Red came up behind him to watch over his shoulder, despite the glare that got thrown his way. "I don't like people looking over my shoulder, you know." 

Red just laughed. "Yeah, I do know. I know most things about you firsthand, remember?"

Arsenal didn't say anything after that, and he probably would have blushed if he didn't get so good at controlling his embarrassment so long ago.

They sat in silence for a while, Arsenal scrolling through a few hours of footage and audio, before they came across the important stuff.

"There." Arsenal announced, switching the video from fast forward to normal play, pointing to the large ship that was sailing towards the dock. 

"Yes, I know." Red acknowledged with a roll of his eyes. "I can see the giant ass boat sailing right into the shot."

Arsenal shot another look over his shoulder. 

"Sorry. I was being mean again, wasn't I." It wasn't a question, more of a statement, but Arsenal nodded all the same.

"Yeah. Just watch the footage now." 

Arsenal hit play, and they both watched with deep concentration what was happening on the screen. Lex pulled up in his car of darkness with his big goons towering over him, and the small man in the lab coat scuttled off the ship, but it was the next conversation that they were most interested in.

"Well?" Lex prompted, causing the small man to flinch slightly. "Do you have it?"

"Oh, yes sir, Mr Luthor!" The man said, his voice an octave or so lower than Red expected it to be. He seemed quite threaten by the goons that Luthor had brought with him, which is odd, since people usually only do business with Lex if they're tough enough to survive in the criminal underworld. This guy looks like he could be swallowed whole by a large pigeon and not put up much of a fight. 

He proceeded to open the heavily locked case that he held in his hands, and Red watched his every movement as closely as he could. After he had opened the case, Arsenal rewound the video and replayed that section, slowing it down and zooming in on his hands to see how he opened the case. The was a regular lock that he opened with a key, then a fingerprint scanner, followed by a code lock and another regular lock and key style latch. Except the last lock seemed to be some kind of tech lock, that could only be opened by a kind of encryption key that Red had never seen before. 

Extra security was way understating it. This briefcase was more secure than most military volts.

After that section, Arsenal let the video play at normal speed again.

"Is that it?" Luthor asked, smiling and nodding at the little green bottle nestled cosily in the briefcase.

"Yes, sir. That's the only vial of it to exist in the world right now." The small man bumbled, pushing his glasses further up his face. 

Luthor looked at it with that smile, exuding that happiness that seemed to foreshadow bad things in the near future, then gently placed it back in its maximum security briefcase.

The small man piped up again. "And you said you can reproduce it? It could be extremely powerful in the right hands." 

Red scoffed a little. Luthor was far from the 'right hands', that was sure.

"Yes, I'm sure I'll be able to reverse engineer it. Shouldn't be too hard." Lex paused and looked at the man. "You say you got this from the Reach ship?"

The man nodded, and Arsenal and Red exchanged a glance that basically said "this cannot be good".

"Excellent." Lex muttered absently, still staring at the little bottle even as the man started to close the case.

After that nothing else was said, and all they could do was watch Lex get into his car and watch the small man scurry back to his ship.

 

There was silence for a while, Arsenal controlling the holo-screen via the controls on his bionic arm. It looked like he was working on getting up the tracking details on Luthor, and Red was perfectly okay with watching him work in silence.

Apparently Arsenal was not.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" Arsenal asked, out of the blue.

Red was tempted to pull the whole 'you just did' thing on the kid, but he remembers how much that used to annoy him when Ollie did it.

"Shoot."

"Okay," Arsenal started, lifting his eyes from the holo-screen now that it didn't need him to steer it anymore. "I can't out hack Batman, so I can't get into his records. And Ollie's computer system is practically prehistoric," Red snorted, he used to tell Ollie over and over again that it needed an upgrade, "so I've not actually read any of your records."

"Okay..." Red prompted, curious as to where the younger boy was going with this.

"It's just that I hardly know anything about you. Do you have a real life? Like with people in it? Do you have a job? Do you do things that aren't superhero related? I mean, I don't actually know what you do with your time, and you can't possibly just be Red Arrow all the time, right? Do you do things as Roy too?"

Red smiles as thoughts of Lian and Jade crossed into his mind. "Yeah, sometimes. Why?"

Arsenal's eyes were flicking back and forth between the screen and Red, something seeming to need his attention but wanting to hear the story as well. He seemed good at multitasking, if right now was anything to go by. "Just wanted to know. What sort of things do you do?"

Red thought for a second. "I've been trying to get my life together. You know, sort myself out. I want to have a happy life, that's all, and it was all going pretty well until..."

An image of Wally's face, smiling and happy, probably planning a stupid prank or something equally ridiculous flashed through his brain, and he found it hard to breathe all of a sudden. 

Arsenal seemed to pick up on it and changed the subject. "So you found me and then decided it was time to get your life in order again?"

Red hesitated for a second before he answered. "Yeah, but I started trying to sort my life out before that."

That seemed to surprise Arsenal, because his eyes widened for a second, and he sat up a little straighter, like he knew what Red was going to say and that wasn't it. "Really? Why? Other than wanting to be better, I guess." He stopped and thought for a second. "I thought I heard Ollie say that you were too stubborn to stop ruining yourself over me."

"Well, Jade talked me into it, to be honest." Red said, getting up to go pour himself a glass of water. "You want anything to drink?"

"Yeah, can I have a glass of water?" Red keeps forgetting that they're the same person. Sometimes, they're just so different, they clash with opinions so often that it's so easy to forget that they're the same. It's so easy to forget that he's just a carbon copy of someone else. It was just so easy to forget that they were the same, because they weren't.

"So," Arsenal started again, "who's Jade?"

Red stopped for a second and mentally cursed. Shit. No one told Arsenal about Jade. Which probably means that no one told Arsenal about Lian, and this is always an awkward conversation to have. 

He filled both glasses with water, and he could feel Arsenal's eyes burning into his back.

"Is she your girlfriend?" Arsenal asked with a grin from the couch.

Red walked back over and handed him his glass. "She's my wife."

Arsenal's eyes almost doubled in size, but the quickly got himself under control. "Your wife?" He was clearly shocked, that much was obvious, but he tried to conceal it. "Wow. Congratulations, I think. You're supposed to say congratulations when someone gets married, right?" 

Red laughed. "Well, thanks anyway. We've been married for a few years though, so I'm not sure that I still need congratulating."

"Really?" Arsenal looked actually surprised this time, and wasn't making any effort to hide it this time. "I had no idea." He looked lost for words.

"What? I don't strike you as the kind of person who could hold down a long term relationship?" Red teased with a smile. 

Every so often, him and Arsenal could be comfortable around each other. There wasn't hate there like Red thought there would be, like the hate Red had for himself for stealing eight years of the younger boys life.

"I don't even know. I never thought about it. It never even crossed my mind." He still looked a little shocked, but he seemed more relaxed now. "So, do I get to meet this woman of yours?" He asked with a smile.

"Probably, I don't see why not." Red answered, taking a sip of his water. Got to stay hydrated in this business. "She'll probably be back some time soon, I asked her for some space because of..." Red trailed off, thinking back to the last time he spoke with his wife. 

Him telling her that he needed the space, and that he just didn't want to be around her or Lian right now. That he didn't want them to see him like... Well, the way he was. Jade understood, of course, she was brilliant, and if anyone understands needing space it's her. But she made sure that she told him before she left that she and Lian love him, and that when he was ready they would get through it together. She probably wouldn't be gone for long, he didn't think she would run out on him, not after how hard they worked the first time. They could get through this too.

"Because of all the stuff that happened." Arsenal finished for him, nodding sympathetically.

"Yeah." Red swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to continue. "I think she'll be back pretty soon, she'll want to meet you. She's kind of the reason that we found you, so you should really thank her."

Arsenal raised his eyebrows. "Really? How come Ollie or Batman or Nightwing never brought her up?"

"She helped me off-the-record." Red added, clarifying.

"So she's not League?" Arsenal asked. Red knew what he meant by not League. He meant she's not an affiliate of any of the Justice League teams, which leaves few other options and the cogs were probably starting to turn in Arsenals head already.

"She used to be with a league." Red mumbled, taking another drink from his water. "The League of Assassins."

"Wait, what?" Arsenal questioned, sitting up fully straight. "You married an assassin?"

Red would've snickered at the look on Arsenal's face right now, if it didn't seem like such an important time. "Yeah, that's the story in a nutshell."

Arsenal looked like he had just been slapped in the face. "Seriously? How did you even meet?"

Red thought back to the first time he met Jade, her Cheshire mask worn so proudly on her face while she killed people. She didn't do that anymore, though.

"We met on the job." Red replied with a small smile. He was so stubborn back then, so adamant to work alone and find his own way into the Justice League. That was the wrong way to go.

"You mean you stopped her trying to kill someone and you just connected!?" It looked like Arsenal was having a hard time believing all if this, and Red couldn't really blame him. If someone would have told him this six years ago he would have laughed in their face.

"It wasn't exactly like that." He wasn't sure how it actually did happen, if he was honest. Whole years of his life were just a long blur, but he could remember certain things. He did have some good memories of that time, even if he was drunk for most of it. He hung on to those memories.

"Is there anyone that actually knows about this?" Arsenal questioned persistently.

"Yeah, a few people, why?" Red asked, raising an eyebrow.

Arsenal still looked pretty dumbstruck. "And they approve?"

Red chuckled a little. "Well, Ollie flipped a table when he found out, bu-"

"Wait, hang on." Arsenal interrupted. "Ollie knows about this? And you're still out here living your life instead of wrapped in six layers of bubble wrap and tied to the sofa to 'avoid you getting hurt'?"

Red couldn't help but laugh, since that had been exactly what happened when Ollie had found out about Jade, but he managed to talk Ollie into letting him go, because he could handle himself.

"Yeah, I managed to explain everything to him." Red replied with a smile. It wasn't quite as simple as that, but it was a very long story that Red just didn't feel like divulging. Ollie would probably tell him eventually, anyway.

"Wow, so one of the League of Assassins was partially responsible for saving me." Arsenal took another gulp of his water. "So, any other bombshells your waiting to drop, or..?" He trailed of at the end, and Red knew he wanted to know. It was probably a trust thing, the kid did seem like he had trust issues. 

"Well, there is Lian..." Red thought he'd mentioned Lian before, but if Arsenal didn't know about Jade, then the chances of Red having brought up Lian and Arsenal not asking question after question about her, were very, very low.

"Lian?" Arsenal asked, tilting his head slightly in confusion. "I think Ollie mentioned her before. What is she, an ex girlfriend serial killer or something?"

Red rolled his eyes. "I don't have a thing for murders, idiot." Arsenal just raised his eyebrows. "Sorry. I'm being mean again, right?"

"Yeah, but I kind of asked for it that time." Arsenal muttered with a small smile. "So, who is Lian?"

"She's my daughter." Red said, turning away from Arsenal's face to take another sip of water. When he turned his attention back to the younger ex archer, he had to stop himself from laughing and spitting water all over the computers in the table in front of them. Arsenal was sat with his eyebrows knotted together, staring right at him like he was waiting for Red to yell "SIKE!" or something. Red stopped himself laughing, but he couldn't keep the small smile from meeting his face. He was waiting for Arsenal to talk first, but it didn't look like that was going to happen, so Red spoke anyway. "What?"

Arsenal continued to look pretty dumbstruck. "I don't know. It's just... You're not just messing with me, right?"

Red laughed. "It'd be pretty lame prank."

Arsenal continued to look gob smacked. "It's just weird... Never mind."

Red raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"No, it doesn't matter." Arsenal almost whispered, shaking his head.

Red narrowed his eyes, but decided to drop it for now. "Okay, whatever." Red sighed with a shake of his head, deciding not to question it anymore. For now, anyway. "Is that thing done yet or what?"

"Just a couple more seconds..." Arsenal trailed off towards the end, typing something into the holographic screen floating in the air. Red hated a lot about the holo-computers, but if there was one good thing about them, they were space savers, that's for sure. You wouldn't believe the amount of storage that had been freed up since everything went holographic.

"It's done." Arsenal announced, his claim supported by the little ping of the computer finishing its search. "That took forever. Your tracking tech could use a lot of work."

"Hey, I'm not Batman, okay? Take what you can get or get out of my apartment." Red barked, before he came up behind Arsenal to look at the results on the screen.

Arsenal turned away from the results just to raise his eyebrows at Red. 

"Sorry, I'm being mean again, right?" Red asked with a small sigh. He really didn't mean to upset the younger boy, or anyone really, but he had a habit of using his snappiness to push people away, and since he recently lost one of the only people to ever see past his snappiness (he tried to not let the pain show on his face as the thoughts of Wally passed through his mind again), he had started making an effort to dial it down, in an effort to stop pushing people away (like Wally said he should).

"It's okay." Arsenal replied with a smile, turning back to the matter at hand. "So, it took longer, but I got Luthor's entire route plus where the car is parked now. Also as a bonus I checked all the security cameras in that surrounding area and managed to piece where Luthor went on foot from there, so I can way with about ninety six percent certainty that he's hiding in this warehouse."

Arsenal had pulled up a map of an area in downtown Star, showing a seemingly abandoned warehouse just within the borders of the Glades. Lex wasn't the type of villain or man to conduct any sort of business in a place like that, usually opting for a LexCorp building or a high security office despite how obvious a headquarters it may appear. But for Lex to be working off the grid like this... It must be something really big.

Something much, much bigger than any of them.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed chapter one, I'll see you after the new year for chapter two! I really like this story, I'm very passionate about it and I think it's going really well.
> 
> Peace y'all!


End file.
